Truth be Told
by shaolingrrl
Summary: TAB tag. Sherlock came to some realizations in his Victorian Mind Palace, but he has yet to tell John. Angst, lots of talking, because we all wish they would just talk.
When Sherlock dragged his eyelids across his eyeballs, like sandpaper across stone, he saw the morning sun diffusing through the blinds in his bedroom, illuminating the dancing dust motes with a gentle light that was truly disgusting to behold. He blinked, scouring another micron off his corneas, and pushed off the mattress in an effort to sit up.

Nominally successful, Sherlock dropped his chin to his chest, closed his eyes, and concentrated on deep, steady breaths. The simple action of sitting up had taken a considerable toll - a pounding in his head he hadn't yet catalogued forced itself to the top of the list of current issues with his transport, followed by a vile taste in his mouth that suggested he had, at some point, drunk one of his own experiments. Next was an all-encompassing ache that penetrated to his very bones. The parts of the sheets that weren't touching him were damp and clammy; the parts that touched him were just damp. Unpleasantly so.

And, worst of all: a distinct fuzziness of thought, a need to consciously focus on the events that put him here, was drastically impeding his decision-making processes.

Sherlock sighed at the unaccustomed effort required to concentrate as he swung his legs out of bed. Where was the sense of urgency he had felt while getting off the plane? The schemes and plans for tracking down the Criminals Who Would Be Moriarty had bubbled through his brain so effervescently he'd felt barely attached to the ground. But in the back seat of the car, between a silent John and a professionally curious Mary, he had crashed. Hard.

Sherlock winced. He may as well have drunk one of his experiments. He'd had neither the time nor the equipment - nor, truth be told, the inclination - to fine-tune pharmaceutical cocktail he'd used to facilitate his relocation to his Mind Palace.

At least his memory didn't seem to be playing him false. He'd refused to end up in hospital, and John, perhaps mindful of the way he'd walked out after getting shot (Professional Mary!) had acquiesced.

Best to get up and start trying to ameliorate some of the worst of the symptoms, Sherlock thought. He had no doubt Mycroft had confiscated his belongings. Caffeine, then. And did he have any nicotine patches left?

Sherlock managed to stand and pull on a dressing gown, while the pounding in his head only seemed to increase geometrically instead of by orders of magnitude. Small favors. He shuffled to the door, glancing at the clock on his way past. Fifteen hours! He'd been passed out on his bloody bed for fifteen hours.

A wave of dizziness and nausea struck as Sherlock straight-armed his bedroom door. Momentum kept him going into the hall and he managed to catch himself on the wall outside next to the bathroom without falling on his face. He paused to let the spots dancing in front of his eyes finish their routine. There'd better be nicotine patches because caffeine alone was not going to be sufficient -

Sherlock froze.

The dancing spots had exited, stage left, to reveal the sitting room. More specifically, John in the sitting room. He was curled up in his chair in an attitude reminiscent of Sherlock himself, with his chin resting on the Union Jack pillow, which was clutched to his chest.

Sherlock couldn't tell if John was asleep or simply staring at nothing. He had to have heard Sherlock's approach, though...

What, on another day, during some other lost lifetime, would have been mild irritation flashed into anger. "John." It came out as a croak, and Sherlock cleared his throat and tried again. "John. What are you doing here? Did you come back to babysit me?"

John stirred at that, the sliver of sun coming through a gap in the curtains dancing distractingly across his hair. He lifted his head and turned. "Sherlock - "

"Did Mycroft put you up to it? Or did you just want to get an early start yelling?"

Sherlock's words produced an interesting effect, which in this case meant no effect at all. John simply peered up at his friend, smiling a gentle smile. Sherlock had counted on his preemptive strike inducing a soupçon of distracting guilt, but John refused to rise to the bait. Considering he was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, he'd decided to spend the night, which would activate his martyr complex...

"No yelling," John said. "How do you feel?"

"About as good as you look. In other words, like hell," Sherlock said.

John grimaced. "I don't doubt it. Sit down at the table. You need hydration and a tiny bit of something in your stomach." The doctor pulled his legs out from under him and settled his feet on the floor, groaning the while. "I don't know how you sit like this - not good for the joints - "

"Tea and biscuits would be lovely." Sherlock pushed away from the wall and shuffled into the kitchen. John met him at the table and intercepted his arm as he reached for one of the kitchen chairs, fingers going unerringly for the pulse point at Sherlock's wrist. The detective sighed loudly. "Please do keep the fussing to a minimum, John."

"Shut up," John muttered, in full "Dr. Watson" mode. "Hmm. Let me see your eyes." John dropped Sherlock's wrist and reached for his jaw to pull his head down.

Annoyed, Sherlock pulled back, but - stopped. For the first time that morning he took a good look at John, at the stubble coating his jaw, the gray tinge to his skin, at his eyes. Normally a clear and steady sapphire blue, they were bloodshot and hazy. Sherlock felt the faintest tremor in the gentle fingers still touching his jaw. _Good God. Have you slept at all?_

If John was aware of the scrutiny, he gave no sign.

Finally he stepped back and sighed. "You'll live. Again. Sit."

Instead, Sherlock grasped John's forearm. "You didn't come back to Baker Street this morning. You never left. Why?"

John stared up at Sherlock, his face, for once, unreadable. Then he pulled his arm gently from Sherlock's grip and turned away. "Sit."

Sherlock pulled a chair out from the table and sank into it. He listened to John fill the kettle, then the hiss and _whoompf_ of a burner lighting.

"Like I said, hydration, a bit in your stomach, and these." John set a bottle of paracetamol next to his elbow, then returned to his rummaging about. "Dammit. Bread's moldy. Bit of a miscalculation, that."

"As I said before, biscuits would be lovely."

John did not reply.

The kettle whistled, and a few moments later John brought a tray with one mug of tea and a plate of biscuits to the table.

"They're not chocolate," Sherlock said.

"They're digestive, and they're not yours. Not yet, anyway."

Sherlock scowled. "Well, can I have my tea, then?"

"That's not yours either. I said hydration. You don't drink tea to hydrate, it's got caffeine in it and caffeine is a diuretic."

"Caffeine is a gift from the gods."

John snatched the Bart's mug away. "Yours is coming."

"John..."

This time Sherlock swung around to watch as John fussed at a steaming bowl on the counter, then pulled a plastic bottle from the refrigerator. The liquid in the bottle was a bilious yellow-green. Sherlock stared in horror as John set the bowl down before him and poured a glass of the liquid.

"This is yours."

"What is this offal?" Sherlock prodded at the lumpy gray mess in the bowl with his spoon.

"Sherlock, if there's anyone who would recognize offal, it's you. It's oatmeal. I hope it's not too heavy for you, but it's the blandest thing I could find in the cupboard. I cut it with milk to thin it out. Also not the best..." John sank down in the chair across from Sherlock and wrapped his hands around his mug. His shoulders drooped.

"I'm sugar. You're milk."

"That's tea. Of which you're having none until you drink that." One forefinger pointed at the glass.

"This piss-colored stuff?"

"Sports drink. Electrolytes."

Sherlock leaned back in his chair. "No biscuits?" His voice sounded childish even to him. Good.

John sighed. "Eat the oatmeal first."

"But they're _digestive_ biscuits - "

"Sherlock." John finally looked up, allowing Sherlock to study his face. His expression was stern, but neither his face nor his voice held any real heat. Instead, Sherlock was struck by the sheer depth of John's exhaustion. No sleep, then. What did he do for fifteen hours?

 _The curious case of the John in the night time._ Sherlock shook off the errant thought and frowned. "You're serious, aren't you. No yelling."

John shrugged. "I want to be sure you still have a working digestive system, Sherlock. Not to mention all your other systems."

"And then what?"

John raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

Sherlock prodded the oatmeal with his spoon. It sank into the gluey porridge like a doomed rat into quicksand. "I was brought back for a reason, John. How many hoops must I jump through before Mycroft is satisfied and we can get to work?"

"You don't satisfy Mycroft. You satisfy me." John lifted his mug, but still didn't drink. Instead, he lowered his face into the last wisps of steam and closed his eyes. "Until then, no working on the case. You don't even leave the flat. So eat your offal and drink your piss juice."

"Since when do you collude with my brother?"

"Since we found something to agree on."

"What? That I'm an arsehole?"

The corners of John's mouth twitched up.

"Fine." Sherlock scooped up a spoonful of oatmeal, shoved it in his mouth, and washed it down with a swig of the sports drink, which didn't taste like piss. It tasted worse. But Sherlock was careful to school his features into an expression of pleased surprise. He lifted the class and studied it. "Hmmm," he said. For good measure, he thumbed open the bottle of paracetamol and shook two pills into his mouth, followed by a yellow-green chaser. "Not bad."

John raised his eyebrows at that, and Sherlock smiled at him. "Here." He pushed the pill bottle and half-full glass across the table. "You look like you could use a couple of these, too."

"Ta." John's answering smile was tentative, and Sherlock almost regretted what he was doing. But not enough to stop the doctor as John popped two tablets into his mouth and lifted the glass.

John froze for an instant with the glass still raised to his lips, then swallowed with a slight gagging sound.

Sherlock snickered.

"Right." John coughed slightly, then cleared his throat. "That's enough of that shite. You can have my tea. I forgot to put milk in it."

"Two - "

"Sugars, yes, I know." John sighed.

Sherlock took a moment to catalogue his various aches and pains as John dumped the rest of the piss juice down the sink and doctored the tea. He found most of his previous complaints still present, though to a lesser degree, and the oatmeal was sending a soothing warmth through him. He took another bite. John made such an excellent distraction.

"Are you going to explain?"

"Explain what?" John set the mug, topped up with hot tea from the pot, next to Sherlock's elbow.

"Your sudden adoption of a more pacific lifestyle."

"Pacific - lifestyle? I don't - " John pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, hard. "Oh."

"Yes, John, it's an ocean _and_ an adjective. Look it up."

John dropped once more into the chair across from Sherlock, and, from what Sherlock could tell from his drooping shoulders, his drooping arms, the way his elbows hit the table while his head dropped onto his hands, the diminutive doctor probably wished he could drop through the floor of the flat and slink away down Baker Street. The waspish glee Sherlock had been feeling at tweaking his friend began to dissipate.

"You can be so...petty," John said quietly.

Sherlock covered his wince with a sip of tea. Perfect, as always. "Please, John. I am still somewhat - discommoded by my recent pharmaceutical faux pas - " John snorted at this - "and talking makes a tolerable distraction. If you'll give me no information about the case, I'll have to find something else upon which to concentrate."

John looked up at that, a faint spark of mirth in his eyes, and the warmth that flooded Sherlock's chest could not be laid solely to a perfect cup of tea. "You mean you want to chat?"

Sherlock shuddered. "John. I don't chat. I converse. I debate." He waved a hand. "I - interrogate."

John looked faintly alarmed.

"It won't hurt a bit. I promise."

"That's my line." John shook his head. "Oh, I'm going to regret this - just a minute." He rose and fetched the teapot, the sugar bowl, and another mug back to the table. Sherlock noticed that the tea cozy was the one he'd asked Mrs. Hudson to knit to match John's hideous holiday jumper, a detail which depressed him for some reason. He watched John pour himself another mug, still sans milk, and again wrap his hands around the mug as though it was the only thing keeping him from being swept away. By the East Wind? Sherlock shied away from that thought.

"Ella said something really spot-on."

"Beg pardon?" John had spoken so softly that Sherlock at first questioned his own hearing.

"Oh - sorry. If I'm being interrogated I should let you start, shouldn't I."

"Let's not stand on ceremony, John."

His some-time flat-mate chuckled at that. "Short answer - blame Ella."

"I'm not surprised," Sherlock said. "How long have you been seeing that woman?"

"She's not as bad as all that," John said. "She's said a lot of smart things. It's just that sometimes she says something worth listening to, and sometimes I listen, but the two don't always coincide."

"That's frighteningly self-aware of you, John."

John looked down and his hands tightened around the mug until his knuckles were white. The left one twitched, and tea sloshed. "Yeah, well. When your whole world blows up in your face twice in three years, it's pretty good motivation to do some navel gazing."

True gentleness was currently beyond Sherlock's capabilities, but he kept his voice low and his tone mild. "What did she say, John?"

John took a deep breath. "Anger. Anger often - isn't. It's a cover, an easier alternative to feeling something else."

"And you did not already know this?"

John shook his head. "I knew it, Sherlock. Of course I knew it. I read as much pop psychology as the next bloke."

"Which means while you're leafing through _The Sun_ to get to the page three spread?"

John grinned, the closest thing to a real smile Sherlock had yet seen that morning. "Berk. As I was trying to say, I knew it, but - I thought it - it didn't matter. Now - " He gestured helplessly.

 _Thus the lack of sleep._ "John." Sherlock chose his words carefully. "Do you mean to tell me that you are attempting to - get in touch with your feelings?"

John flushed. "God, it sounds like such rubbish when you say it."

"I think you'd be better served having this conversation with Ella."

John glared at him. "You did ask."

"So I did." Sherlock eyed him. "You're not going to be nearly as much fun as Saint John, you know."

"Shut up." John grimaced, but Sherlock noticed his death grip on his tea had loosened. He shook himself. "Besides, I'd think you'd appreciate it if I stayed calm while discussing certain things with you."

"Such as?" With an effort, Sherlock kept his face impassive, merely raising an eyebrow. But inside his head his own words echoed: _John, there's something I should say; I've_ _meant_ _to say always and then never have._

The doctor leaned back and cleared his throat. "Well, there's the fact you owe me a gun."

Sherlock blinked. "I owe you a - ah."

"That Browning and I went through a lot together. It was one of my best mates." John sounded positively wistful.

"Talk to Mycroft, since you're so chummy with him now."

The doctor shook his head. "Nope. It's a murder weapon. Twice ov - bollocks! I hope they don't run the ballistics!"

"That would be a good subject to bring up with Mycroft. Tell him if he wants to keep his babysitter out of trouble, he'd better make a certain bullet disappear from the Met's cold-case lockers."

John snorted. "See what I mean? And I really am going to miss it. At least Greg gave it back to me."

"Lestrade?" Sherlock frowned at John's nod. "When did he have your gun?"

John froze. Sherlock read his sudden apprehension in his darkened eyes, in his tight lips, in his strained breathing.

"When - no, why? _Why_ did Lestrade take your gun?"

John laughed, a hollow, mirthless sound. "Oh, back to interrogating, are we?"

"Tell me, John." Sherlock waited.

John finally shrugged, but he refused to meet Sherlock's eyes. "After you - killed yourself, I had my own bust, but it wasn't a drugs bust," he said. "Greg showed up and told me in no uncertain terms that either the Browning went into protective custody, or I did."

Sherlock swallowed convulsively. _Seems you failed to consider this possibility_ , said the slightly mocking voice in his head that was never silent for very long, the one he thought of as Mycroft. _That would have cocked up your calculations, wouldn't it_.

"Shut up," he muttered.

"What?"

"Ah - a bit of an over-reaction on his part, wasn't it?"

John rubbed thoughtfully at a ring of condensation on the table top, and Sherlock could see, with a sense of mounting horror, that Lestrade had not over-reacted at all.

"I don't know," John said. "You said you heard me at your grave?"

Sherlock nodded, not trusting himself to speak. _I was so alone -_

"Well, I wasn't going back to that."

Sherlock pushed away from the table, and John watched him, frowning, as he rose. "Sherlock?"

"That would have been a good one on me." Sherlock laughed bitterly. "To come back after two years tearing apart Moriarty's web just to find you'd eaten your gun."

John went white. "That's what you did to me."

"Stop saying that," Sherlock roared. "That is the height of imbecility, John. I was not dead, I am not dead, I did not, in point of fact, kill myself. You persist in holding on to what is simply not true!"

John boiled out of his chair and around the table, heading straight for Sherlock. "It's my truth, Sherlock! For two bloody years and longer it's been my truth!"

Sherlock stood his ground. "Temper, John. You don't want to make it too easy on yourself, do you?" he asked coldly.

John stared up at him, eyes wild, hands clenched at his sides. "Nope," he rasped. "If I wanted to make it easy on myself, I wouldn't feel anything at all. Hmm?"

Their eyes locked.

Sherlock broke first, pulling back from the depth of his friend's anguish, and John swayed slightly. "Sit down before you fall down," Sherlock said. He took John by the shoulders and pushed him into a chair. The smaller man did not resist, and Sherlock could feel him trembling beneath his palms. "What the devil do you mean, it's still your truth?"

"Because your dead body is still in my head," John snapped.

"Oh." Sherlock turned away, fiddling with the sash of his dressing gown. This conversation had long since veered far beyond the comfortable, or even the comprehensible, but he could think of no way to extricate himself that John would find acceptable. Well, he'd wanted to be distracted. "Even after you met Mary?"

John buried his face in his hands. "Jesus. I didn't just replace you, Sherlock. Nobody could replace you. It's not like jam for marmite on toast, or Earl Grey for English Breakfast." He giggled but his voice broke into a half-cough, half-sob, and he straightened and turned away. "Mary couldn't even replace you when you were _dead_."

Sherlock studied him through narrowed eyes. "John, as far as I can tell not even I can replace me."

John remained silent for so long that if Sherlock had been anyone but Sherlock, he would have thought his friend hadn't heard. He cleared his throat. "John - "

"That's because I'm not me. Not that me, anyway."

"Explain. Please. And try to make sense."

John sighed. "Sherlock, when you - fell, a bloody great chunk of me got ripped out and I never got it back." He turned to Sherlock, his eyes haunted. "I wasn't the useless git you met, but I wasn't much better. So I tried to put together someone I could live with - live as. And then you came back."

Sherlock nodded reluctantly. "I kept that piece of you safe with me, John."

The doctor looked at him, so many different emotions passing across his face Sherlock could not identify them all. Pain. Loss. Longing. "You might have," John finally said. "You thought you did, I know. You even offered it to me. But then I thought - I had to think - 'What if he does it again?'" John pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes shut tight. "I even asked your corpse. He just sat up and looked at me."

"He didn't say anything?" Sherlock tried a tentative smile. "There you go. You can't ask for better proof he's not real."

John grimaced. "Then came the Magnussen mess and your suicide mission and I had my answer."

"Who said anything about a suicide mission?"

John's look was pitying. "'Since this is likely to be the last conversation I'll have with John Watson' -"

Sherlock flinched at his own words, recited back to him in those achingly sad tones.

"Last conversation. Why would that be, Sherlock?"

"Because I was never going to set foot in England again. Really, John."

"What? I don't own a passport? Spies don't get vacations?"

"It would have been too dangerous - "

John held up a hand. "You're Sherlock Bloody Holmes and your brother is the British government. You could have thought of something." Sherlock couldn't look at him. "Even if it couldn't be face to face, why did that have to be our last conversation? We're living in the Internet Age. Global village. I have a bloody blog. If That Woman can text you 57 - no, 58 times - "

"Fifty-nine," Sherlock whispered.

"- from wherever the hell she was tramping about, why could you not contact me? I wouldn't have expected Skyping every Friday tea, but an occasional text should have been possible. Even a spam email selling Vatican cameos would be enough to tell me you were alive." His voice shook. "And this time would have been worse, because I wouldn't even know - I wouldn't know when - or how - "

"All right!" Sherlock took a deep breath. "All right, John. You've made your point."

"No, Sherlock, I don't think I have."

"Then do it now and let us finish this."

John fixed his gaze on Sherlock, and this time it was Sherlock who couldn't look away. "My point is this: The next time you think it's a bloody brilliant idea to destroy yourself for me, just remember that who you leave behind wouldn't be worth the bullet it would take to put him down."

Sherlock nodded. His heart was pounding in his ears, his mouth dry.

"Sherlock?"

"What do you want me to say?" he snapped. He closed his eyes.

"How about, 'You're right, John'? Or, "Never again, John'? Or how about, 'I've been an idiot, John'?"

Sherlock retreated before John's remorseless voice. Suddenly he felt a breeze caress his cheek. It freshened quickly until it became a strong wind. Streams of water lashed his face.

He heard a "harrumph" and was not surprised to find himself standing on a ledge, the Reichenbach Falls at his back and Victorian John frowning at him mightily. That John thrust out his chin and tugged on his drenched waistcoat. His mustache bristled. "You know perfectly well what to say to him, Sherlock. Now, off with you!"

Sherlock had to smile. Yes, he knew what to say. "There's always two of us," he murmured.

John - his John, his blogger, his doctor, his friend - John choked. Sherlock opened his eyes. John faced away, head down, hands gripping the arms of the chair, his entire body rigid.

"John. John, look at me."

"That's what I always thought." John forced the words out through clenched teeth. "That's what I always - wanted."

"Then that's what you shall have."

John drew in a shuddering breath and turned. His wide eyes searched Sherlock's face.

Sherlock held out his hand and smiled. Hesitantly, John took it and let Sherlock pull him to his feet. He smiled back, and Sherlock ached to watch it grow in warmth and conviction.

"Come along, John," Sherlock said. "Our game is on!"


End file.
